Andrew Morton, the Linux Kernel 2.6 maintainer announced last week at the Embedded Linux Conference in Mountain View that he is looking for an architecture-independent embedded specialist.

The candidate will take over the full time job as the embedded maintainer and thus liaise between the developer community and the kernel maintainers.

To let the future maintainer know what they are letting themselves in for, Morton talked about the kernel selection process, how the kernel community supports it, and how new code enters the kernel mainline. Morton has been looking for an embedded maintainer for six months now, and time seems to be running out, with the number of kernel developers and lines of modified code rising continuously. Embedded devices with Linux are becoming increasingly popular, and this is why, says Morton, somebody has to take care of the kernel's embedded branch.

Right now, the kernel developers are doing their best for embedded Linux users to bridge the technical divide between mobile devices and server or desktop computers, but things "can and do break", says Morton. In this case, he needs somebody capable of mitigating the damage. If you are interested in the job, please contact Andrew Morton.

The smallest kernel, put together thanks to a collection of patches by the Linux-tiny project, weighs in at just 197KB. After two years of inactivity, maintainers Michael Opdenacker and other developers are looking to breath new life into the project.